Another Covid moment

This afternoon one of my sisters, the only one who still lives in the same city as my mom, posted this picture to the family WhatsApp.

It's a picture of the bear my mom has on her bed. 

This bear has been tucked away forever but has made a reappearance during my mother's nearly year long isolation in her house.

Now my mom is about as sharp, tough, and resilient as they come. She says that if the pandemic doesn't end soon she doesn't know what she will get up to next. Still the sight of this little bear, now 93 and the one my mother had as a baby, has really touched me. Note the nose darned by my grandmother, who I never met, who died when my mother was a girl.

The thing about the bear is that my mom recently knit her a new sweater. She says she is going to work on a new skirt next so the bear "looks respectable." 

Now I don't know what is getting to me more. The knitting new clothes or the thought that this little bear has made a reappearance after all these years to be a comfort.

A quick little video on my favourite foot

 I have been using my edge stitch foot a lot lately. As a result I decided to do a quick video for folks who might not yet realize the power of this little accessory. I figure new sewists in particular would really benefit from this foot in their sewing toolbox.

The stages of learning sewing translated

I had an extremely interesting hair cut yesterday. My stylist was pretty sharp. She did my hair on a Saturday because she has gone back to school during the week.

Because of her current learning we talked about the stages of taking on something new when you have been doing something else for a long time. This is a pretty interesting process to consider.

She talked to me about a classic model of learning, and in particular the first stage, unconscious incompetence.

I thought about our conversation all weekend. These ideas bumped up against other conversations I have been having on the issue of confidence among sewists. I have observed that older sewists are often tentative with their sewing. When I first mentioned this in my monthly newsletter I had many emails from readers who shared the ambitious projects they jumped into when they were younger, and how they now procrastinate with many purchases of patterns and fabric, nervous about actually executing any of these projects.

By contrast I equally see some social media sewists who are quick to jump into expert status with very little actual sewing experience, and in doing so sometimes do not give the best advice to new and returning sewists.

So if you are willing to indulge me I would like to interpret the chart below from a sewing perspective:

I think there is something to think about here and also, I hope some comfort for those on the getting to learn to sew better continuum.

Unconscious incompetence- This happens at the beginning of learning a new skill, I think a hands-on skill in particular. You know the feeling when you look at someone else's work or watch them sew and think "I could never do that." You can, at your worst moments, even think that you will never be good at this. I think this feeling is particularly prevalent about those of us who were raised in a family where aptitudes were considered something you were born with and pretty set for life. You know "she's the athletic one" or "I am no good at crafts/sewing". A lot of people get discouraged or give up or panic at this stage of learning. The learning curve once you begin to see what is involved in sewing, just seems too overwhelming.

Conscious incompetence: This is the stage when folks become students. They buy courses, books, read blogs, Google everything. Some people even stall at this stage and become more students of sewing than sewists. I think this is the stage where the paralysis of confidence can kick in. Sometimes this can be manifest in muslin fittings of many iterations - almost as if the sewist feels she needs to perfect before she sews. A pretty interesting stage. Practice is the key activity here and leads directly to the next stage.

Unconscious competence: As a sewing teacher I see this one a lot - sewists who are more able than they give themselves credit for. These are the people who make me want to chant like my grandchildren do when I am on the trampoline in the backyard "Do it, Do it, Just Do it." Practice at this stage I think is where practice is no longer as much about learning as it is transferring the skills to muscle memory - you begin to acquire a repertoire of things you can do in your sleep - if you give yourself credit for this or not.

Conscious competence: This stage is pretty obvious - you can do it and you rely on those skills. Only practice and pushing through the previous three stages gets you here.

However I personally think this is the most dangerous stage. This is when you think you know it all, or are so confident in your skills, that you can close the book on learning. This is me who jumps right into a new pattern and doesn't read the instructions because, well you know, I am so smart. But of course lots of the time I am not. How many mistakes have I made because I didn't read the instructions? I am not going to tell you.

It seems to me that deciding you don't need to learn anything new is even more tricky than not knowing what you don't know yet. In systems theory any system that is closed, doesn't allow in new information (which of course means you have to embark on travelling through the first three stages of learning again) is system doomed to atrophy. 

And who wants to let their sewing go there?

So what do you think? Does this make any sense to you? What of your own observations would you add?

 

This is just a short one. Appropriately.

I would like to report a miracle. Seems to me that is always worth doing.

As long time readers of my blog will know my old girl Daisy was a much abused puppy mill mom when we got her. 

She was full of tapeworms, had never had her feet outside a cage, never been fed from a bowl. For months she threw up every time we fed her. I remember the first time she stood on grass. Her eye sight is bad in one eye, maybe from a blow to her head the vet said.  She lost most of her teeth.

She is a wonderful little dog, though, absolutely the best. So loving so bonded to me. But she has her scars. She still starts at loud noises, and gets upset if a man raises his arms.

Daisy missed a lot in her life. 

She has never played with toys at all. Once my mom sent her some small stuffed animals. Daisy went frantic. She ran around possessed trying to hide them in the backyard. If she saw anyone looking to where she hid those stuffed animals she would move them to a new hiding spot. In Daisy's mind were these her long ago lost puppies?

Who will ever know.

Then, in her late middle age we got this cat. This crazy confident happy little cat. My son's dog ignores the cat, and Daisy has seemed bewildered by her. I have had my moments when I even wondered if adding a cat to this dog household was a mistake.

But the cat hasn't cared. For some reason she has decided she loves Daisy. She gets in the dog bed with her and purrs when Daisy walks by. She shimmies underneath Daisy's body and delicately grooms her legs.

And lately they have started to fool around, duck and dodge, nudge each other.  At first the cat was just being a nuisance but then Daisy started to respond. She has started to go looking for the cat for some gentle wrestling every now and then.

But tonight for the first time Daisy went and got a tiny ball and batted it to the cat. Who batted it back. For a good ten minutes they rolled that ball back and forth to each other.

Then I saw it. 

This crazy barn rescue little cat has given Daisy what no one else ever could.

The ability to play, to be the puppy she never was.

I don't know about you, but in these times, this small miracle meant a lot to me.

Flypaper thoughts: real commitment edition

• My current working theory
• Is that universe has used this pandemic
• To send those of us lucky enough to be healthy
• A giant time out
• As in
• Maybe you need to go home and think about things
• How else can we explain NYC and London streets deserted?
• Doing my part 
• I have more or less retired
• Only remaining paying gig is radio work talking politics
• During which I only express the conversations
• On my street
• Lot of common sense on my street
• Back to thinking
• Since being more or less retired I have been trying to decide what to do next
• I have a begun manuscript called "How to be an older woman"
• Based on thoughts I have walking the dogs
• Also a cozy mystery based on people I have actually known while I sewed 
• And things that I know actually happened
• With the only real fiction addition
• A real someone who was particularly amoral
• Who I have finally found a safe way to murder
• Overdue that one
• But really this is fooling around
• When considering more serious and worthy options for my time
• I decided that apart from my family
• And my animals
• The only thing I really, really care about
• Is sewing
• More or less since I was eight-years-old
• So as a person qualified to write about how to be an older woman 
• I am just going to lean into that fact for the duration
• With everything I've got
• Why not?
• I am now keeping track of my steps
• According to the NY Times this is important
• So now I am watching my steps
• To make sure I don't go over the limit
• And walk so much I am cutting into my sewing time
• Got to be careful
• One of the things about being an older woman 
• Is that no one really is all that concerned about what you are doing
• So you have a lot of room to move, self-indulgence wise
• Which is one thing we have in common with the other end of life
• When lying on the grass looking for shapes in the clouds
• And laughing with your best, best friend until you almost pee your pants
• Is a good and useful way to have spent a day
• Since I made this decision
• I have ordered a bunch of online fabric while in the bath
• And started to organize my sewing room like it is mission control
• And not just a sideline
• Or a hobby
• I am outfitting the bedroom that is most sunny
• And looks out on my street
• I don't want to miss anything
• Even though the street is already heavily supervised
• Drop your keys on the driveway and the phone rings as soon as you get in the house
• Mrs. Smith
• "I think you might have dropped something when you got out of the car"
• Who needs a security system?
• My personal favourite
• "Do you know your husband is on the roof again?"
• "At his age"
• No did not know
• And I am not surprised
• I can sew and see the boy two doors down
• Hoping to get into medical school
• Walking the dog for my 89 year-old-neighbour
• Who her husband bought for a surprise
• A golden retriever puppy
• Yes she was surprised
• Or the rounds of neighbours who take poor old blind and deaf Garth out to pee
• So his mom who is working from home
• At some kind of high level law enforcement
• Can concentrate on her work
• No real idea what she does but a lot of shredding in the the recycling
• She's also a good Italian baker
• You want an invite to her lawn chair in the summer
• Presently three rounds of women actually have a schedule to keep Garth going
• I sit and sew 
• And watch the daughter of a girl who grew up on the street off to visit Yia-yia
• Yesterday I used to watch her mother walk to the bus to school
• In the opposite direction
• To outfit this sewing room
• My husband come down from on the roof
• And I had to move everything into other bedrooms so he could install new shelves and tables
• Can you explain to me why it takes two other rooms and a hall
• To hold what I had in one room
• It's like sewing is an add water situation
• Watch it and it expands
• Listen I have a question
• Part of lining up the life compass on sewing
• I have come to terms with the things I don't much want to spend time a lot of time on
• I have faced that fact that in the kitchen
• I only really really enjoy canning and pickling
• And some baking
• The day-to-day stuff I leave to my husband
• That man
• He is so precise
• He actually weighs everything
• Quarter pound hamburgers
• You guessed it
• Every single one
• That's why he likes to supervise the roof
• Me I eyeball seam allowances
• Where we converge is in the eating
• I love to eat what he cooks
• But sometimes
• OK this is my question
• What are your go tos?
• I am thinking of what does a person who would rather be sewing like to cook
• Minimum time
• Maximum taste
• This is not too much to ask
• So I am asking you

Where's your style gone in the pandemic?

 There are many things I wonder about all of us when this thing is all over.

Will some folks discover they are introverts and become agoraphobics  when they are finally allowed to let loose on the streets?

Will people who started to work from home ever go back to the office?

Will we stop baking bread ourselves?

Will we continue to have Zoom meetings with our doctors?

Will we start wearing clothes again for any other reason than they are comfortable?

The last one interests me.

My own style has taken a bit of a turn around in this house.

My daughter and I went shoe shopping last week and I bought something that I wouldn't ever had looked at twice before- these super, super comfortable little boots for walking the dogs. Whenever I put them on (they are Beezies if you are interested) I make a big deal of how completely cozy and comfy they are. 

But not my style at all, you know how elegant I am, with all this fake fur, stitching, and silver heels. 

But things are different these days. All I care about right now is having my feet feel good. Actually all I care about right now is whatever I can do to make any part of me, inside or out, feel good.

What is the pandemic doing to me? Will I ever totter around in heels again? What is happening to me?

I am not the only one. 

I made my daughter, and now by request my son-in-law, multiple bamboo knit sweatshirts this winter. Here is an example of one on my daughter. We love this fabric because it feels so soft and caring on our bodies:

I am also pulling out random fabric from my shelves, of the weird category of "why did I ever buy this" and making sweatshirt type tops to go with my furry booties for dog walking.

Here is some extremely odd quilted knit that I made into a sort of a top with a zipper to the front and I collar I made up. My husband calls it my Star Trek shirt and suggests I add a logo.

I have styled this with my post dog walking hair un-interferred with by things like a hair brush, mirror or haircut, keeping my faith with my decision to show my real life on this blog, as is,

Now this has to end sometime. 

I was lucky enough to be gifted a big pile of old Burda magazines this week. Daisy and I have been going through them and I have enjoyed the complexity of the designs so much. They have awakened my desire to sew more challenging projects again once the great hibernation of 2020-2021 is over.

How about you?

How has Covid affected your style? Short and long term? 

This is on my mind.

Notes from my husband Leo on setting up a projector for projector file sewing

The biggest challenge with the projector set up is getting it fastened in the appropriate place. 

That issue starts with your choice of projector. The normal setup is a projector that sits on a table and projects on to a wall. That works great for watching Sesame Street but you want to project it to a horizontal surface and have the image large enough to cover the entire piece of fabric for sewing pattern projection:

A short throw projector projects a large image over a short distance but these can be hard to come by and are expensive.

By contrast a regular projector needs in the range of 78 to 86 inches to avoid to have to keep moving the image on the computer screen and moving the fabric to get all the pieces projected onto the fabric in an efficient way. 

Unless you have high ceilings the best and least costly option is to purchase a unit that is made to sit on a table (ours is a Bomaker) then devise or purchase a mounting bracket that will allow you to project from the ceiling to the floor - around 82”. I used a shelving wall support and fastened the projector to it and then fastened it all to the ceiling. Once it is fastened to the ceiling it needs to be plumbed in two directions to ensure accurate projection of all the lines.

First direction to check will be across the the front to the rear feet of the projector. You will need to develop a system of leveling if one is not a part of the mounting bracket. I, for instance, used the wooden part of a clothespin that is wedge shaped as my levelling aid. 

Wedge leveling system :

The other direction to level would be across the front of the projector where the lens is. 

Checking plumb front to rear

Checking plumb across the front. 

If the image is not projecting accurately after plumbing the projector there is an adjustment knob (keystone) adjacent to the focus knob that tilts the lens so as to project the image squarely at the surface. 

Next task is to check scale of the projection. 

There should be, as part of the pattern, a calibration square, that is a specific size. You will need to change the size of the PDF in Adobe to match a) the output of the projector b)the pattern scale and c) the distance from projector to surface onto which the image is projected to get the calibration square the correct size. 

For instance with a Jalie pattern, a Bomaker projector that is 82” from the surface scale needs to be set at 21.1% through the Adobe software to get the 2” square to project accurately. 

This achieved through trial and error. Once you have the square projecting accurately you need to check the size of the image as far away as possible from the center of the image to verify accuracy. 

If you cannot get the image to project accurately across the entire image with these steps you may have purchased a projector that cannot be used for this purpose. We initially made that error and returned the bargain priced one and bought the inexpensive “Bomaker “ that works flawlessly. 

There are a few other setups that are used. There is a setup where a projector sits on a table or shelf and projects to a table at 90 degrees and a setup with a mirror that projects in the same manner. I understand how these work but have not used or set one up.